


Off the Record

by bea_bickerknife



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: (to say the least), Adultery, Dirty Talk, F/F, Mostly just Esmé domming the everloving crap out of a member of the press corps, Oral sex (non-reciprocated), Pretty sure this counts as a violation of journalistic integrity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 17:26:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12462444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_bickerknife/pseuds/bea_bickerknife
Summary: "Cheap champagne," muses Esmé as Geraldine babbles. "She's like cheap champagne with a fancy-looking label, and it’s much too sweet and much too bubbly, but it gets you just drunk enough to forget how much you’re going to hate yourself in the morning."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, I own none of the characters in this work, nor do I derive any remuneration from its posting.

Knocking is _out_. 

Draped full-length over the velvet fainting couch ( _in_ as of this morning), Esmé doesn’t need to turn away from the window to identify the person who has just entered her second-favorite boudoir. The eager gait, the quick click of imitation crocodile stilettos, the distinct, diluted aroma of an _eau de toilette_ purchased in lieu of a more expensive _eau de parfum_ – every detail is a sensory hallmark of the same woman.

“Ms. Julienne.” It’s slightly more than a statement of fact, but not nearly a greeting.

Dressed in a passably tailored but ultimately unconvincing knockoff of an emerald sheath dress that the In Boutique began selling a week ago, with carefully curled tendrils of mousy hair skimming her shoulders and an excitable flush spreading over her cheeks and a sparkle in her otherwise unremarkable brown eyes, Geraldine Julienne could almost pass for pretty. She’s young enough not to need much makeup, Esmé notes with a swiftly-suppressed pang of jealousy. Just on the skinny side of slim, with an earnest forward tilt her posture, she puts the actress in mind of a line from Julius Caesar – something about a lean and hungry look.

“Oh, Mrs. _Squalor_!” she effuses, drawing even with the foot of the couch before taking a few hasty steps to the side in an effort to avoid blocking Esmé’s view over the City. “What a _thrill_ to see you again! You know, until you called, I was beginning to think you’d forgotten all about me – after all, someone as glamorous and famous as you can’t possibly remember every reporter who interviews her!”

 _Cheap champagne_ , muses Esmé. _Cheap champagne with a fancy-looking label, and it’s much too sweet and much too bubbly, but it gets you just drunk enough to forget how much you’re going to hate yourself in the morning_.  _  
_

It isn’t her captivated awe that interests Esmé, who has come to expect nothing less. It isn’t her ill-concealed infatuation or her obvious flattery. It isn’t even her obsessive devotion. Awe and infatuation and flattery and devotion have lost their novelty, if not their cachet, but the journalist’s fanatical desire to please has caught her attention.

She shifts into a sitting position, crossing her legs so that her robe falls open to the thigh and smirking inwardly as the younger woman tries – and fails, of course – to keep herself from staring. When the tawny gaze shifts guiltily back up to her face, however, she meets it with a smile. “But I _do_ remember you, Geraldine. I can call you Geraldine, can’t I?” she asks, as if she’s not going to anyway.

“Why, of _course_!” The reply sounds almost comically sincere. “And may I call you Esm–”

“We’ll discuss what you can call me later.” The diamond ring on her left hand glints in the light as she pats the space beside her invitingly.  

Beaming, Geraldine arranges herself on the fainting couch, sets her handbag on her lap, and reaches inside for her notepad and pen.

 _Oh, no, you don’t_.

Her wrist feels fragile in Esmé’s grasp. “Perhaps I forgot to mention it on the phone,” the financier begins in honeyed tones, “but this afternoon is _strictly_ off the record. Your readers at the Daily Punctilio won’t hear about it,” she continues, watching Geraldine’s eyes widen as she strokes her thumb over delicate skin on the underside of her forearm. “Your colleagues won’t hear about it. Your friends won’t hear about it, assuming you have any, and unless you’re all unusually close, I _certainly_ hope your family won’t hear about it either.” Without breaking eye contact, she plucks the pad and pen out of the reporter’s grasp, tucks them back into the faux-leather satchel, and drops the bag to the floor with a decisive _thud_. “Do I make myself clear?”            

To her credit, Geraldine doesn’t quail. “Perfectly,” she replies with a deferential nod.

“Good.” Esmé’s stare softens, her grip loosens, and she tilts her head to one side, considering. “Have you ever been married, Geraldine?”

She asks questions for a living, but this one appears to take her by surprise. “N-no,” she says, before starting in on the kind of explanation that sounds as if it’s been trotted out at one too many dinner parties. “I mean, I’ve considered it, but now that I have my own column, I’ve been so busy I barely have time to _eat_ , let alone go out on any – ”

“Yet here you are,” interrupts Esmé slyly, “three hours before the deadline for the weekend edition, here in my penthouse with me rather than back in your office with your typewriter, and you haven’t checked your watch _once_.”

“I didn’t want to wait,” she says. “I didn’t want to keep you waiting, I mean,” she amends, rosy-cheeked and hurriedly attempting to steer the conversation back into safer waters as Esmé quirks an amused eyebrow. “Anyway, even if I had the time, I haven’t found the right” – a split-second pause as the writer weighs her words – “well, the right _person_. After all, we can’t all hook the most eligible bachelor in the City after a single night with him!” She giggles, a bright, nervous sound that fades abruptly as Esmé shifts toward her, reaching out to tuck an errant curl behind her ear.

“Oh, but it isn’t a _bachelor_ you want, is it, Geraldine?” Cool fingertips feather over her flushed cheek. “That’s not what you want at _all_.” Esmé’s eyes glitter knowingly as she leans in closer. She won’t kiss her, of course; instead, she waits for Geraldine’s eyelids to flutter shut and breathes four words against her parted lips.

“Get on your knees.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Mrs. Squalor!” Geraldine’s eyes fly open. “What about your husband?”

Maybe it’s the oddly appealing naïveté of the question, or maybe it’s the genuine concern behind it, but for the briefest of moments, Esmé considers telling her the truth: that her marriage is a sham, that the City’s most eligible former bachelor’s only notable skill between the sheets is snoring, that the five months since their honeymoon mark the longest she’s gone without sex in her adult life, _ever_ , simply because she can’t bring herself to waste her theatrical talents on another night with him. It occurs to her that these are the sorts of things other people might discuss with a friend or a confidante – or, hell, with a psychoanalyst – but then the moment passes and the concept of candor feels comfortably foreign again, as unsettling and ill-fitting as a pair of secondhand shoes.

“I thought you didn’t want to keep me waiting.” Her voice is black ice, dark and smooth and perilously cold. Uncrossing her legs and reaching for the sash of her robe, she fixes Geraldine with a look to match her tone. “Get. On. Your _knees_.”

She can’t recall the last time she saw someone move so quickly.

“Better. Tell me, is that rug comfortable?”

It isn’t, but they both know that’s not really what she’s asking. “Of course, Mrs. Squalor,” comes the reply, and while the lie isn’t quite convincing enough to fool the former actress, it’s almost smooth enough to impress her. 

“Well, it should be,” Esmé sniffs. “I spent an absolute _fortune_ on it just last week.” Reaching out for the half-finished cocktail on the side table – absinthe and tonic, violently green and violently fizzy and violently _in_ for the past three days – she takes a leisurely sip. “Now,” she says, and there’s something disarming about the juxtaposition of her bedroom eyes with her boardroom voice, “I’m only going to make this offer once, so I’d advise you to pay _very_ close attention, because there won’t be any negotiation. If my terms don’t suit you, you are to leave immediately, and if you value your career and your reputation and your life in this city, you won’t mention it to me again, even if you change your mind later. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Good.” The financier sets down her drink. “Whether or not you choose to stay, our relationship in the public eye remains the same. _I_ will carry on as the City’s sixth-most-important financial advisor, fabulously wealthy and desperately missed by the theatrical community, and _you_ will go on reporting all sorts of flattering things about me, along with your…whatever else it is you do as a journalist. You are not to do or say or write anything whatsoever that might even _hint_ that you and I are acquainted in anything other than a purely professional context. Can you manage that?”

A quick nod. “Of course, Mrs. Squalor.”

“If you stay, you are at my disposal completely. When we are alone – and _I’ll_ decide when I want to see you alone, of course – my satisfaction is to be your sole concern. You are not to touch me unless you have my express permission, and when you do, I expect you to do _precisely_ as I tell you. You aren’t to expect any reciprocation, but if I decide to touch you, or if I should happen to allow you to pleasure yourself in my presence, you will express your gratitude for my generosity in the strongest possible terms.” Knocking back the remainder of her drink, she returns the empty glass to the side table; when she speaks again, her voice has softened fractionally. “Oh, I suppose that all sounds dreadfully unjust, doesn’t it? But on the other hand…” She lets her robe fall open, reclining against the rich upholstery of the fainting couch to afford Geraldine a better view. “Just look what I’m offering _you_.”


	3. Chapter 3

Geraldine looks. 

She looks at Esmé the way an art student might look at a favorite sculpture upon seeing it for the first time in a museum rather than a textbook. Her eyes are everywhere at once, flickering over marble-white skin as though she’s trying to commit every taut, supple inch to memory before the sand runs out in an invisible hourglass. There is a peculiar stillness in her posture, as if she’s holding her breath, and the expression on her face falls somewhere between insatiable hunger and slack-jawed reverence. 

It’s not an unfamiliar reaction. “You know,” says Esmé, cutting unapologetically through the hush, “I never answered your question.”

“My…my question?” asks Geraldine faintly.

“You asked what you could call me. _Esmé_ is out of the question, of course, although it’s not nearly as _out_ as _Mrs. Squalor_.” She doesn’t wrinkle her nose at the sound of her married name, but she looks as if she’d like to. Then she peers down at the woman kneeling in front of her and the first inkling of a smirk begins to play at the corners of her crimson mouth. “No, I really think _mistress_ might be more appropriate from someone in your… position, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, mistress.” Not a trace of hesitation.

“Oh, that’s _much_ better,” she all but coos, parting her legs invitingly. “I think you deserve a little reward, don’t you?”

“ _Please_ , mistress.”

Shapely thighs spread wider. “Then _lick_ ,” says Esmé. The word stretches, luxuriating in her mouth before her throat closes around the _k_.

Shuffling shakily forward, the journalist reaches out on instinct to steady herself with a hand on Esmé’s knee. Instantly, there’s a flash of movement. A sharp slap rings out, a stinging flush reddens the back of her hand, and black eyes glare down at her.

“What did you do wrong?”

“I touched you without permission.”

“And will that happen again?”  
  
“No.” As if to prove she’s serious, she clasps her hands behind her back.

Esmé narrows her eyes. “No _what_ , Geraldine?”

“No, _mistress_ ,” says Geraldine. “It won’t happen again, I swear, and I didn’t mean to, I was just – ”

Before she can gild that particular lily any further, Esmé cuts her off. “If I wanted an explanation, I’d ask for one. Now, I seem to recall giving you something useful to do with your mouth, so _lick me_. And make it good.”

The mousy head bows and Esmé has just enough presence of mind to stifle her moan when Geraldine’s hot, eager mouth closes over her. _She hasn’t earned it_ , she reminds herself, _not yet anyway_ , though if she’s being honest, the woman in front of her is already proving far more adept at this than her husband.

As if _that’s_ a high bar.

She supposes she could count herself lucky that Jerome isn’t the sort of man who refuses to perform this task at all (that, after all, would lead to an argument), but she doesn’t _feel_ lucky. Invariably, he manages to make it feel like nothing more than that – a task, a half-step above a chore, a checklist item before moving on to a more rewarding activity. He never offers, and on the handful of occasions when she’s requested it, he’s assented with the same perfunctory passivity that meets her requests for various _in_ items, as if he’s humoring a capricious child.

There’s nothing at all perfunctory about what Geraldine is doing. “Oh, you’ve done this before, haven’t you?” Esmé purrs, as if that isn’t patently obvious.

Without so much as interrupting her rhythm, Geraldine nods.

“And where would a good girl like you learn to do such _wicked_ things with her tongue, hmm?”

“Journalism school.” The response is muffled, but Esmé catches a grin in it. “Women only. _Mistress_.”

Esmé lets out a short, brilliant laugh that ends on a gasp as Geraldine works her open with her lips. “You must have been popular.”

“Not as much as you’d th-”

“ _Shh_.” Her hand sinks into the younger woman’s hair and pulls it taut. “Hasn’t anyone taught you not to talk with your mouth full?” She rocks her hips, holding Geraldine precisely where she wants her. “ _Mm_ , let’s make it a little fuller, shall we? Show me what that clever little tongue can do in my – _oh_.”

It isn’t the most dexterous thing she’s ever had inside her, and it certainly isn’t the longest or the largest or the most expensive; nevertheless, Geraldine’s tongue feels slick and strong and nimble when it breaches her entrance, and her current dry spell has gone on long enough that she doesn’t really need anything superlative anyway. The woman between her legs is delving as deep as she can – that much is abundantly clear – but that doesn’t stop Esmé from wanting more. She grinds herself more forcefully against her and her arousal commingles with Geraldine’s saliva, the sensation slippery and vulgar. “You like that?” hisses Esmé through clenched teeth. “You like me fucking your face? _Using_ you? You like being my _fucktoy_ , is that it?” Her grip tightens and the younger woman whimpers. “That’s right, go on, _moan_ if you like it so much.”

A throaty, indecent noise drifts up into the perfumed air of the boudoir and suddenly the plunge of Geraldine’s tongue isn’t nearly enough. “ _Suck_.” Esmé drags her upward with an unceremonious yank and Geraldine struggles for a moment, swollen lips sliding ineffectually over the aching nub at the apex of Esmé’s sex. “What, didn’t get around to learning this part in journalism school?” she taunts. “Suck my _clit_ , Geraldine, come on, _harder than that_ , and you’d better – _unh._ ” From a less urbane source, the sound might qualify as a grunt; from own throat, Esmé considers it an involuntary glottal stop. “You’d better pray I come,” she continues, her erratic thrusts not making that job any easier, “or I swear to God I’ll destroy every single solitary _thing_ you’ve ever cared abou – _ohh_.”

She abandons her threat the instant Geraldine begins to suckle in earnest. Five months’ worth of tension sends her inner walls spasming; without any conscious decision on her part, her thighs draw closer together, trapping the younger woman in place as she digs sharp scarlet fingernails into her scalp. Esmé can’t – she _won’t_ – let her know how badly she needs this, how desperate she is to spill herself over soft pink lips and a delicate porcelain chin rather than her own fingers, so she bites down hard on her lip, head thrown back and eyes screwed shut, and clings doggedly to a single thought.

 _Don’t scream_.

Her lungs feel too tight, shattering her breaths into shallow, ragged gasps.

 _Don’t scream_.

It’s much, much too late to slow the frenzied pace of her hips, so she gives herself over to it, rocking against Geraldine until she finds a tingling, toe-curling balance of slick friction and rhythmic suction and _god, you must be **ruining** her makeup_.

 _Don’t scream, you know this isn’t worth it, you know **she’s** not worth it,_ but Esmé can’t – and it really is _can’t_ this time, she realizes, not _won’t_ or _shouldn’t_ or _would prefer not to_ – keep quiet any longer. “ _Yes_ ,” she grits out, her voice as taut as her arched spine. “So close, so _fucking_ close, fuck me – _mmh_ – fuck me like I’m _paying_ for it, ohgodyes, just a little m- _more_ , ohmy– **_oh,_** that’s it _,_ **_that’s_** it, gonna _– ”_

She doesn’t scream.


	4. Chapter 4

She doesn’t scream.

That’s what Esmé tells herself in the afterglow, at any rate. It was a moan, maybe, or at worst a wail – a release of tension, nothing more, and certainly not an acknowledgement of any notable skill on the part of the woman currently looking up at her from between her legs.

She hadn’t been wrong about the makeup – from her ski-jump nose to her pointed chin, Geraldine’s face positively _glistens_. Her lips, which had been painted an unflattering but admittedly _in_ shade of coral, look ruddy and bruised without it, and her eyelashes have left blurry black impressions of themselves under her lower lashline. A quick mental calculation informs Esmé that she’s just cost the journalist a substantial sum of money in powder and lipstick and mascara alone, without even beginning to account for lost wages for the time away from the Punctilio’s news desk or the cab fare to Dark Avenue or the holes she is reasonably certain the Persian rug has worn in the knees of her stockings.

 _Pity_ , she smiles to herself. _That was probably her best pair, too_. Not bothering to close either her robe or her legs, Esmé leans over and plucks a tissue from the lacquered box on the side table. “Here,” she says, letting it drift down like an oversized snowflake to land in Geraldine’s lap. “I can’t have you seen leaving my apartment with a face like _that_ ,” she adds, as if the gesture might otherwise be mistaken for a thoughtful one. “Go clean yourself up. There’s a mirror in the – ”

Before she can utter the words “powder room across the hall,” Geraldine has already reached into her handbag, produced a silver compact mirror, and begun to dab at her face with the tissue. “Mr. Squalor is due back any minute.” She’s still kneeling, but her back has straightened and she sounds disarmingly serene. “If I go into the hall, he might see me and ask questions.”

“How, exactly, did you happen to come by my husband’s schedule?” asks Esmé, instantly suspicious. _It doesn’t mean she’s a spy_ , she reassures herself. _And even if she is, you’ve got a switchblade in your pocket and a revolver under the cushion and that new nerve agent in your nail polish._ She glances casually down at her left ring finger, which gleams just a little brighter than the rest. _Which means **she** wouldn’t have a prayer_.

“I checked with his assistant in the cab on the way over. Under an assumed name, of course.” There’s an artlessness in the tone and timing of her reply that Esmé recognizes as the hallmark of either an honest answer or an extremely suave liar.

“And why would you do that?”

“A good reporter always knows what she’s walking into.” With a decisive _click_ , she snaps the compact shut and returns it, along with the crumpled tissue, to her purse as she rises to her feet. “And I thought maybe if you were alone…” The flush creeps back into her cheeks.

 _So much for suave_. “If I was alone?”

“I thought it might be a social call.”

It’s an odd turn of phrase, old-fashioned, and something about the look that accompanies it tells Esmé it’s not meant as a euphemism. She tilts her head to one side, deliberating as she wraps her robe around herself. _On the one hand_ , she thinks, _Geraldine Julienne would practically need a stepstool to reach the bottom rung of the social ladder_. On the other hand, seventy-one empty bedrooms don’t make for especially thrilling company either, and there’s no harm in polishing her cocktail party anecdotes with a captive audience.

“Well,” she sighs, “seeing as my hairdresser won’t arrive for another half an hour, I suppose you can stay until then if you’re feeling so _sociable_. Now, have I ever told you about the winter I spent in Moscow?”

“Russia? In the _winter_?” Geraldine settles back down onto the sofa, wide-eyed. “Wasn’t that awfully cold?”

“Oh, you’d think so, but I happened to meet the great-great-great granddaughter of the Romanovs’ favorite seamstress, and she designed an absolutely _exquisite_ mink coat for me – perhaps you’ve seen me in it? Well, it’s actually a very funny story…”


End file.
